The Directorate

UNTIL

U.N.T.I.L – United Nations Tribunal on International LawUNTIL was founded to fulfill the need for a fast-response force without individual national ties was eventually conceded by the UN Security Council, though it took almost a two years of frenzied negotiations between the member nations to decide its exact composition. UNTIL’s mandate was finally agreed on: To act as a deterrent to multinational terrorists, and to provide personnel and logistical support in times of disaster.

UNTIL’s history, as might be gathered, is one of compromise and, unfortunately, political hopscotch. As with the United Nations itself, the upper echelons of the organization are mostly filled with political appointees and compromise candidates — leaving the task of fulfilling UNTIL’s mandate to the “middle management,” which is to say Regional Commanders, and the “grunts,” the various operations sections. Nominally, UNTIL reports directly to the UN Security Council through its own Administrative Council, though individual regional commanders have traditionally taken great latitude in how they interpret that particular requirement. The single overriding prohibition governing UNTIL is that it is not allowed to involve itself in political conflicts between member nations or even cultural factions within member nations; therefore, in theory, no member nation may use UNTIL personnel and equipment against their neighbors or in their own internal political problems.

Member nations are expected to contribute to UNTIL’s budget. This sometimes leads to vehement protests from member nations who don’t feel that they are “receiving their money’s worth” (there existing legitimate grievances that Europe and the western hemisphere tend to dominate policy decisions and manpower composition), or even outright refusal or inability to pay their share; however, in recent years many private corporations and multinationals have replaced such nations as contributors.

The organization itself falls into four easily distinguished sections:

Intelligence: A far more efficient section than might be assumed from the policies that their superiors form based on their work. In many ways, INT-SEC acts as a sort of championship league for the global intelligence community, as they recruit heavily from M-5, M-6, the DGSE, and the BND, among others. Their official headquarters is in London, though they are rumored to have an unofficial (and far more important) headquarters somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Operations: The rank and file operatives and soldiers, this section has no centralized headquarters, instead operating under the direct supervision of the individual Regional Commander’s offices. Operatives come from many different nations, though they are expected to keep their unit loyalty a higher priority than their patriotism. As almost a separate section unto itself, UNTIL maintains what it calls "Special Operations Group One.”

Research & Development: Overworked, underpaid, and largely ignored in favor of their more “glamorous” colleagues in Operations, these are the scientists and technicians that keep UNTIL’s advanced equipment on the cutting edge R&D traditionally has a hard time keeping its top-notch staff as private corporations, as well as the staff members’ own individual governments, keep “stealing” them away. Central headquarters for this section is in Paris.